38 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



I attended the meeting last month in Baltimore of the^ 

 National League of Commission Merchants, and I can assure 

 you they were a fine -looking and an honest appearing lot 

 of men, notwithstanding the opinion of some shippers who 

 may have a different idea of the commission merchants 

 than what I may have. 



The subject which I have taken for my talk to you to- 

 day — namely, "Our Fruit Industry: The Proper Care and 

 Handling of Same" — is a very broad one, and very much 

 can be said upon it, but I will try and not tire you by say- 

 ing too much. 



Our fruit industry. Have you any idea of the immense 

 amount of fruit that is grown in this country? Why, only 

 think of the quantity that is shipped from the State of Cali- 

 fornia alone. Last year over 12,000 car loads of oranges 

 and lemons and this season the estimated crop is 15,000 to 

 18,000 car loads, and still there are thousands of trees in 

 the State of California which have not come into bearing 

 yet. The total shipments of green, deciduous fruit, such 

 as peaches, plums, pears, grapes, etc., from California for 

 the season of 1899 was 7,500 carloads; 400 cars of walnuts 

 shipped from that State the past season. Why, there is 

 one vineyard in the State of California, situated about 200 

 miles north of San Francisco, in the heart of the Sacra- 

 mento Valley, which belonged to the late Leland Stanford, 

 which embraces about six square miles. The wine and 

 brandy productions of this estate alone is so large that Uncle 

 Sam erected a bonded warehouse upon it to collect his taxes. 

 The warehouse itself occupies over two acres of space. 



Add to this vast amount the canned and dried fruit 

 shipped from that State. It is estimated that 2oo,oco,ooo 

 pounds of prunes are grown on our Western coast annu- 

 ally and these prunes have almost entirely driven from our 

 markets the immense quantity of foreign prunes which 

 were imported to this country only a few years ago, and at 

 the present time large quantites of California prunes are 

 shipped to France, and there re-cured, French style, and 

 then sold for genuine French prunes. 



The raisin crop of California for the year 1898 was 2,400 

 car loads, and the total amount of money received for the 



